TLC Has Released Promotional Images of the Upcoming Season of ‘Counting On’, but Some Familiar Faces Are Missing
TLC has announced that Counting On will return on June 30. The announcement, which came on the same day that Jinger Duggar announced her second pregnancy, was accompanied by new promotional photos. Fans were quick to notice, however, that a couple of familiar faces were missing from the photo shoot. Jana was standing front and center, as the eldest unmarried Duggar daughter, but Joy-Anna Duggar and her husband, Austin Forsyth, were suspiciously absent. Fans are now wondering if the duo will appear in the upcoming season.
Joy-Anna and Austin are missing from promotional material
Along with the announcement that the series would be returning on June 30, TLC released promotional pictures. In the photos, most of the couples, and their children, are included. The most widely circulated photo includes everyone except Joy-Anna and Austin and their son, Gideon.
Some fans assume that Joy and Austin just weren’t able to make it to the photoshoot for the promotional material, but that seems unlikely. Even Jinger and Jeremy Vuolo, who live clear on the other side of the country, were included in the photo.
The couple’s pregnancy announcement wasn’t included in the season’s promo either
Missing a photoshoot is one thing, but the couple also doesn’t appear regularly in the video promo released by the network. The promo, which has a run-time of just over 2 minutes, barely features Joy and Austin, and it doesn’t offer any information about a potential storyline that may include them.
In fact, they appear to only be visible in one scene during the entire promo clip. Reddit users point out that there have been clues suggesting they are not returning for months. Joy and Austin made the decision to share their pregnancy news on YouTube, a move that deviates significantly from the Duggar family protocol. Most other pregnancies announcements have been made through TLC.
Will Austin and Joy-Anna return to Counting on?
TLC has not made an official statement about which Duggars will be featured in the upcoming season, and the Duggars are staying quiet about it, too. So far, it’s pretty clear that Jinger and Jeremy, as well as Jessa Dugger and Ben Seewald will be featured heavily on the series. The promo also showed clips from Lauren Swanson, Kendra Caldwell, and Abbie Burnett’s labors. All three Duggar in-laws gave birth to daughters between November 2019 and January 2020.
Joy and Austin stepping away from the spotlight, makes a lot of sense to family followers. Most seem to agree that Austin looks incredibly uncomfortable on camera, and his discomfort has not abated the longer he’s been on TV. It’s entirely possible that the duo could join Jill Duggar and her husband Derick Dillard by stepping away from TLC. Derick and Jill, who are embroiled in a family feud, have not been featured on the show in several years. Their lack of involvement also started with skipping promotional photoshoots.
